


first times

by justsomerain



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Everybody Lives, F/F, Femslash February, First Times, Post-Rogue One, Post-Star Wars: A New Hope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-27 13:25:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10022555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justsomerain/pseuds/justsomerain
Summary: She sees, really sees, bacta tanks don’t count, Jyn Erso for the first time during the debrief of the heroes of Scarif that follows them waking from their medically induced comas, and they all look a little worse for wear. The two older men stand close together, the larger of the two an arm around his blind companion, the former Imperial pilot looking jumpy, skittish, Cassian Andor’s face carefully blank, and the only exception to these neutral expressions, these faces of acceptance, is Jyn Erso, full of barely concealed anger.Written for the starwars-sapphic challenge on Tumblr.





	

**Author's Note:**

> starwars-sapphic Challenge #1: Wildcard
> 
> tumblr user zaryanovaings vs. tumblr user lesbianfatale

She sees, really sees, bacta tanks don’t count, Jyn Erso for the first time during the debrief of the heroes of Scarif that follows them waking from their medically induced comas, and they all look a little worse for wear. The two older men stand close together, the larger of the two an arm around his blind companion, the former Imperial pilot looking jumpy, skittish, Cassian Andor’s face carefully blank, and the only exception to these neutral expressions, these faces of acceptance, is Jyn Erso, full of carefully barely anger.

Of course, she should have expected it, but there is still something fascinating to this woman, not much older than herself, daughter of an Imperial scientist, known for a troublemaker, known for a history with rebellion, and yet she had been so reluctant to aid them in anything until the moment she had been told that the Rebellion would not be acting upon the information that might or might not exist. 

She figures that perhaps she would have been as angry if she had lived the same life, and she easily could have, had her parents been more outspoken against the Empire, she could have been this angry at the Rebellion, but that was not who fate had made her.

The briefing speeds on, more a formality than anything, and before she knows it they’re bundled up to make for Hoth, Jyn Erso’s face like a thunder cloud burnt into her mind. 

The first time she really is face to face with her isn’t until after the first week on Hoth, icy cold in one of the mess halls, when she sits down across from her at one of the long tables, mostly empty, and Leia can’t help but wonder why. There are empty tables, it’s an unusual time to eat, if she had to guess past midnight on this icy ball, the mess hall all but deserted except for the few sad souls who have night shifts, or those like herself who would rather not sleep. Jyn Erso looks her up and down, eyes narrowed, scrutinising her movements, and she can feel herself grow cold, icy, righting herself, shoulders back, chin high like her mother taught her, staring back.

They sit like this a minute, two, Jyn staring at her from that thunder cloud face, she icy cold before Jyn snorts, shaking her head and starts spooning up her food, silently. Her eyes don’t meet Leia’s again until she finishes her meal and gets up, not a word said, no nod, just taking her tray and taking off. 

Leia stares after her, Jyn Erso’s face burnt into her mind, scrutinising her, and she notes half-detached that there’s no reason for her heart to beat like this. 

(Luke, kind and calm, a friend that offers her some solace now she is an orphan, shrugs at her when she asks about it in the morning. “She has lost everything too.” He smiles kindly, squeezes her hand, before running off, busy as ever.)

The first time she speaks to Jyn Erso is later that week. She sees her during the day, catches glimpses of her in the icy halls, but she doesn’t meet her again until she’s in the mess hall again, nigh on four in the morning, where she’s poring over a holopad, trying to distract herself from everything that’s running around in her head. Her shifts don’t start until the afternoon, and she needs something to do, lest she drive herself mad. Again Jyn sits down without a word, staring for a long moment, before shaking her head almost imperceptibly. 

Leia can feel a cold between her shoulder blades, pulled back almost as far as they can go. Her mother, her father, they had tried to calm her temper, but no matter which tutor they had sent, she had never quite mastered it. It served her well enough, and finally her parents had given up, her mother laughing at her exasperated father, eyes mild. “She won’t do it if she doesn’t want to.”

Her mother had been right, and though she tries now, bites her lip, counts to ten, she narrows her eyes at Jyn Erso. She has too much on her mind for games, too many responsibilities to be stared at as if she’s nothing.

“What do you want?”

It’s a long minute before Jyn looks up at her, even longer before she responds.

“I wanted to see how it could have been.”

She hadn’t quite expected an answer, and is momentarily taken aback by it. She feels some of her temper dissipate, able to imagine what Jyn means all too well, and her shoulders relax some. Leia nods, eyes searching Jyn’s.

Carefully she mulls over her response, before opening her mouth to speak, and her voice comes out softer than she had intended.

“I wondered too.”

(Luke, ever sage, only gloats a little. “I told you so.”)

She holds Jyn Erso’s hand for the first time two weeks later.

They are both creatures of… Perhaps not habit, but something in them drives them to staying up later than is completely wise when they worry, and both of them worry. Hoth may seem safe for now, but the threat of the Empire is ever present, and when it frightens her, Jyn is there, finds her in the mess hall, and they talk. When Jyn is up too late, thinking of her father, of her fathers, for Saw Gerrera might as well have been her father, Leia finds her in the mess hall.

It’s their habit now, they sit and share, they eat, silently.

Their lives could have been the same, or similar. She could have easily been raised by a man whose entire life was the Rebellion, and sometimes she’s not sure her father’s life outside of his family wasn’t the Rebellion. 

It’s three thirty, the mess hall empty, as Jyn tells her about a mission gone wrong, and from what she remembers from Jyn’s files she works out that she must have been younger than she pretends she was at the time, telling the story as if she had been sixteen or so, but Leia knows better. She had read it on the same holopad she always keeps at hand. “No mention in combination with Saw Gerrera since age twelve.”

When Jyn falls silent, eyes on the table, shoulders tense, her breathing erratic, Leia reaches out, tentatively, puts one hand on Jyn’s clenched hands.

She can feel Jyn’s hands relax beneath her own, and they sit like this for a long time.

The first time she kisses Jyn Erso is the day after she first holds her hand. Technically it’s the same day, if she wants to be precise, which she usually does. 

They’ve sat in the mess hall, silently, for a long time, her hand holding Jyn’s, and she’s not entirely sure exactly when Jyn moved, tangled their fingers together, but she marvels a little at it anyway, Jyn’s body warm against her side. She can feel her heart beating as Jyn shifts, hand still firmly in hers. When Jyn speaks it startles her a little, as far as she had drifted away in the feeling of warmth radiating from hand and side.

“Maybe everything happened to get me here. Get both of us here.”

For a moment the words confuse her, until Jyn sits up, pressing her lips against her own, which should confuse her but doesn’t. For just once, Jyn Erso does not confuse her.

“Maybe it has.”


End file.
